The following is a Gameplay Guide I've been writing to provide newbies and regular players alike the skills they will need to build an effective city in SimCity Social. This guide is based on personal experience and will be periodically added to as I learn more, but for now here are the specifics:

The Basics:There are five primary resources in the game. Everything you do when growing your city deducts 1x Energy (yellow lightning bolts), including chopping down trees in the area although, sometimes, you will receive a rebate of Energy for doing this. You will also receive rebates of energy intermittently when buffing structures and collecting resources created by them.

The second resource is XP (blue stars) that is awarded every time you do something as well, which means when it reaches 100 you will advance in rank, your Energy level will be fully replenished and the maximum amount of Energy you receive will be increased. As you build Businesses, these will release the third primary resource, Simoleons (money), while Farms and Factories will release the fourth as Materials, used in upgrading. All of these types will then sometimes release Collectibles, also used in upgrading, or helping your Friends’ tasks/upgrades...

Finally, you will receive Diamonds with every rank as you level up.

The Eveready Bunny:If you are low or empty of Energy supplies, leave the game and come back in 30 mins. After this period has elapsed, at least 15 units of Energy will have been automatically replenished while you've been doing something else! Alternatively, you can ask neighbouring, friendly cities you're connected to for Energy as a gift-request. Energy accumulates to a certain point depending on what Lvl you currently hold, but Energy supplied by friends can be found in your Inventory, which when added will temporarily boost this limit until they are spent. The only way to increase the maximum amount of Energy you can collect is as you level up.

Enjoy Your Stay:The optimum placement of Housing is two spots either side of a Road. In the case of areas of the waterfront, or certain natural objects found in new Zones, there are bonuses in population awarded to housing for increases in resource pay-outs for Simoleons, and Materials and special items from other types of structures as your city develops. These areas will give you a percentage of added bonuses so you can plan your city’s growth, and can also be harvested for certain resources.

Roads will restrict movement of houses once built, but not when they are being placed first-time on open ground. However, if you build a road to a given point, place housing and then delete the Road, you can place more houses in the empty space based on size needed. While Roads cannot be repositioned, they are free and you can arrange them any way you like in Zones you own.

Diamonds Are Forever:As your population grows, certain structures in the Businesses, Farms, Factories, Attractions and Decorations catalogue will be unlocked. You can also unlock these with Diamonds, but I advise against this – the major reason being that such structures are notoriously expensive, and you either have to earn Diamonds them over a long period, or purchase them from the Store.

Home Is Where The Heart Is:When creating residential areas, there is an important issue you need to be aware of. Since the game is still in development there is only one type of residence you can purchase - the 2x2 square option for 100 Simoleons - which also allows you to create 1x1 and 2x1 homes. However, what you also may have noticed is just how problematic using the lesser placement types are. For example, a 2x2 residence by its location and Decorations can hold a maximum of 700 people...

The problem is that a 1x1 residence can only hold 35 people, and a 2x1 can only hold 70 people, no matter how many Decorations you add to the area! While this doesn't mean you shouldn't take an opportunity to place a small residential-type near the water, or near a land-based population booster like the Waterfall to the north, you must understand that the game in its current build does not support larger than 70 people using the smaller residential layouts. This means that, when building your city, cherish as much 2x2 space in zones you own, or you may not be able to effectively increase your population.

In The Zone:Zones help you to expand your city-limits as you require more space. To access new areas you need Land Permits (an item available exclusively as Gifts from neighbours) as well as Simoleons and, as you expand, these Zones will increase in the resources required to unlock them for use. However, not all of these will cost the same amount of Simoleons, so you need to be thoughtful about which areas will be of the most value when building your city.

Be Mindful Of Your Surroundings:Whenever you start with a new city, there are objects in certain Zones which can be harvested. Sometimes these will reward you with Simoleons, Materials, a Decoration you can put in your city to increase population, or even simply clears the space on which they sit. The first of these is a Mineral Deposit that sits on the left side of the Train Station, and is readily available to players when they start building the city. After you've harvested from it six times this will reward you with the "PlumBob Monument", a 50-pop decoration with a radius of two squares. Whilst components from some of these Wonders are used in quests (such as the UFO Crash Site), you may find some of them extremely useful and should seek them out when you have the resources. Be careful, however, as while you can collect these resources/decorations, the zones themselves cannot be used by your city unless they are connected. You also need to purchase these zones before you can access the Wonders in them.

You can receive a second PlumBob decoration by clicking [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which can only be acquired once. You will find other links like this providing one-time daily rewards at websites including [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] set up by EA on Facebook...

Be advised that not all Wonders have the same requirements - for example, the "Sphinx Monument" needs two History Museums, the "Ancient Ruins" need two Zoos, and some need a certain population.

The Friendship Factor:As a social, online world, certain structures with upgrades or needing to be “staffed” require that you have some Facebook Friends willing to play the game with you. Examples of this include Farms, Emergency Service structures, and the UFO Crash Site. You can get Friends also with the game to do this as much as is needed, but realistically, having a reasonable amount of Friends through Facebook playing helps out a lot. If you don’t know anybody or are unwilling to do this, you will be unable to proceed very far.

You can ask for Gifts (such as Energy), special items and staffing only a certain number of times per day. Once this has been depleted, you will be given a notice and required to wait 24 hours before you can ask for additional help from neighbouring cities, so choose wisely!

All That Glitters:A good routine once you reach Lvl 10 is to spend Simoleons on Decorations with a population increase of 10 or more. Although most have an ROI (radius of influence) of 2, if these are positioned in a place with about half a dozen houses surrounding them, every housing complex will get a boost of 10 in population. These include structures purchased with Fame – a resource awarded exclusively when you apply a buff with Energy to a neighbour-city’s structure – which sometimes has large ROIs and population boosts.

It may be useful to note that overlapping ROIs in small clusters of housing complexes will provide more population but, when swapping out one decoration for another, there will be small decreases in your city’s number of residents until it is replaced. Shuffling the position of houses around as your city grows helps as well, as you can anticipate problems when dealing with population-related quests.

I'm A Gamer, Not An Accountant:It's cheaper to sell Materials for Simoleons than vice-versa; if you are low on Simoleons, make sure you have enough Materials being produced. The best Factories for these within the first 15 Lvls are the Mercedes-Benz, Furniture and Chemical Plant – make sure you upgrade these to 3-Star facilities as soon as possible to reap maximum benefits. Chemical Plants are especially useful as, once fully upgraded, each provides 390 Materials every two hours.

In the case of Simoleons for Materials, the dividend-curve is more difficult. Within the first 20 Lvls, the best Businesses include the Comic Book Shop, Convenient Store, Burger Joint and Coffee Shop, which are unlocked as your population level grows. However, be advised that the Convenient Store requires a LOT of Fame to purchase, and the others a lot of Simoleons.

You Reap What You Sow:Having two types of the same Farm helps; for example, if you select Soy Beans from two Vegetable Farms for 1,280 Simoleons, you get 10,000 recouped the next day... similar options exist for Animal Farms, providing over 11,000 Simoleons from 1,400 Wool. As long you have two of each farm-type, you can thereby reap huge dividends! As you upgrade these Farms as well, you gain more Simoleons/Materials provided when making harvest orders.

It's important to upgrade all Farms to 1-Star as soon as possible as well. Even if you don't plan to maximise output, a 1-Star Farm unlocks the ability to select more expensive crops to harvest (albeit over longer periods), which produce double the amount from simple payouts.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving:Gifting people can be very helpful. If they are in your friends list, there is a button that will appear marked "Gift" where you can send them items for free once that day; unless they help you out, when you can send another. They may also ask you for Collectibles you possess to help their city expand, or to staff building in their city - in turn this means you may recieve a Gift from them in the same way.

My Chemical Family:Having more than one Chemical Plant can be particularly beneficial. When fully upgraded, it can provide 390 Materials every two hours, which means a multiple of these are useful surplus for upgrading/economy exchange. Add to this a waterfront location bonus of 100-230%, and they can output up to 780-1,287 Materials per structure! The next structure higher than this is the Soda Plant, which produces 450 Materials before upgrades/bonuses every 5 hours...

Basically the more water that surrounds your factory on dry land, the greater the payout will be, so be be sure to purchase as many zones near these areas as you can to increase output of Materials.

Share And Share Alike:Visiting a neighbour's city at least once every day will allow you to collect 1 Energy and 100 Simoleons using bonus Energy units you can spend. You will also earn 1 Fame for every bonus unit absolutely free. Use these to increase your friend/foe relationships, leading to greater item drops.

All Aboard:The Train Station is one of the most useful structures in the game. While Businesses and Farms provide Simoleons, and Factories provide Materials, the vast amount of Collectibles you require for upgrades are much easier at being procured from the Train Station than anywhere else. Like the Farms, it is also another source of vast Simoleon-deliveries.

At least once or twice a day, be sure to expend your supply of Energy to harvest the large quantities of Collectibles dropped by it.

Angel And Devil On Your Shoulders:The most painful Collectibles in the game to get are Bliss and Wrath. These tokens are used for certain 3-Star upgrades and for some buildings once you reach Lvl 15 or above. However, there is a much simpler way of getting these than what EA's tutorials in the game suggest. To collect these, you need to be at least Tier 3 Positive (Friends) or Tier 3 Negative (Enemies) with a neighbour.

Then whenever there's a problem that involves Police Station, Fire House or a Hospital in their city, you have to spend an Energy unit with the affected structure on the Positive option for friends, or the Negative option for foes... be advised you may either have to do it once or several times in the city, depending on how long since you tried last, but it will eventually cough up a Bliss/Wrath token faster than simply spending at random. On all unaffected structures, these only drop after about every 35 buffs.

Trust, Teamwork and Unity collectibles are only available through the "Twin Cities" buff, which becomes active once you reach Tier-1 friendly status with a neighbour. You should note that you can only become twinned with one other city at this time, but you can still use the buff with a chance of receiving the collectible even if your city and theirs are not connected.

The Collector:Low on Hard Hats, Cash Registers or other useful Collectibles? while it does get a little fiddly, there is a solution to your woes. First you need to find a spot in your city where there are up to three or four businesses/factories/facilities/attractions close to each other (you may have already grouped some of these together if for convenience). Now you need to buff each of these in a cycle, one after another, so their drops overlap... if you do this fast enough, Collectibles should then appear once every cycle.

Please note the Safety Awards are the hardest drops to get, so you may have to perform a dozen or so buffs in order to get those.

Claiming New Territory:With the use of the Gift system, players are able to to receive certain items daily to help them increase their population or purchase upgrades from Materials. Another useful ability to send Land Permits, which allow you to expand your city's borders.

Let's say you have half a dozen friends. You send each of them a Land Permit, and then they in turn each send you and each other a Land Permit themselves instead of an Energy Cell... although this means you may have to wait a while before your energy supply recharges, if done over five days, each of you gain a surplus of 30 Land Permits a week! Now bear in mind that you can only collect 80 of these at a time, but if this is performed once every two weeks, you and your friends are able to expand your city much more effectively.

Murphy's Law:Whenever you're running low on Energy, something really weird happens where the chances of you earning collectibles from Businesses/Factories decreases dramatically. This has not been labelled as a bug but rather an odd circumstances with the gameplay system, so to improve the chances that you won't receive a penalty on drops, make sure your energy level is at least 12 or above when collecting Simoleons and Materials.

Perks of the Job:Ok, so you're trying to complete a quest or upgrade a building, but you need more Police Badges/Medals of Bravery/X-Rays to do it. The problem is, you're not really getting as many drops as you would like, and your friends only want to send you Energy. Sound familiar? What may not be known is that you don't need to collect these from crises that occur in your city, but they are still hard to get without a proper amount of timing...

First, you must have two facilities of whatever type of collectible you need (I.e., two hospitals to drop X-Rays), preferably with both upgraded to Tier-2 status, or this trick won't work. Next, you need to perform a friendly action on these two buildings, alternating between them, for a period of 4-6 buffs. If you are able to do this whilst maintaining a rhythm when switching back and forth, one of them should drop the collectible. Be advised, however, that whenever you do this a crisis might occur that slows the whole game down, so if you exit this process for whatever reason or are not fast enough, you won't receive a drop at all.

Easy Money:With the new improvements to the game, it is even easier to rearrange your city, but there are times when you can get low on Simoleons or Materials. This is where Friend/Foe Buildings come in. Provided you have a surplus of Fame and the space to put it somewhere, you can get an injection of cash flow by going into the store. Now, while the Friend/Foe building it's still under construction and before you use up collectibles, simply sell it using the Bulldozer feature...

It varies from the size of the building as to what you will get, but a Gaia Tower or Fortress of Woe for 2,500 Fame will reward you with 40,000 Simoleons. It also frees up the amount of Fame you have, as with this resource you can never earn more than 5,000.

Last edited by Hyncharas on Sun Dec 02, 2012 5:01 am; edited 33 times in total